EU diplomacy chief Kaja Kallas seeks to expand Russian sanctions by one third

EU diplomacy chief Kaja Kallas is proposing the most ambitious expansion of sanctions against Russia since the February 2022 invasion began, aiming to increase the number of targeted entities by one-third this autumn. Writing in the German newspaper Die Welt on 17 August 2026, Kallas stated that these measures would immediately expand the current sanctions list. She asserted that existing EU measures have already deprived the Russian war machine of more than 1,000 billion euros.

The push for heightened financial pressure comes as Moscow and Kyiv intensify long-range strikes. According to reports from 20minutes and lessentiel.lu, the two nations have been escalating these attacks for months, resulting in a growing number of civilian casualties.

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On 17 August, a Ukrainian missile strike hit the locality of Koloskovo in the Russian region of Belgorod, approximately 15 kilometers from the border. Regional governor Alexandre Chouvaïev announced via the messaging app Max that six civilians were killed and four were injured, including a child.

The violence is symmetrical in its reach. In central-eastern Ukraine, Russian missiles struck the ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih steel plant over the weekend. The steel group confirmed the attack killed two people — one staff member and one subcontractor — and injured 13 employees and subcontractors. The company reported that blast furnaces and primary energy production facilities were damaged, partially interrupting production.

Other strikes have widened the geography of the conflict. Sunday's exchanges killed at least 19 people across both nations, including the destruction of a book market in Kyiv. In Russia, a wave of hundreds of Ukrainian drones killed five people in a residential area of the southern Rostov region, while three others died in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Moscow regions. In Ukraine, Russian strikes killed two people in Zaporizhzhia, one in Sumy, and one in Donetsk.

This instability is bleeding into NATO airspace. On Sunday, a Spanish F-18 fighter jet on mission in Romania intercepted and shot down a drone at 5:01 local time that had entered Romanian airspace from Moldova. The Romanian Ministry of Defense reported that debris may have fallen in an uninhabited area of the Galati region.

The incident is part of a broader pattern of incursions on the eastern flank. Italy recently shot down a drone in Latvian airspace, and Poland and the Baltic states have reported similar breaches. In Bulgaria, a Maya decoy drone, commonly used by Ukrainian forces, exploded Saturday near the Kardam border crossing with Romania. Bulgarian Prime Minister Roumen Radev stated the device exploded within 1,000 meters of a Trans-Balkan gas pipeline compression station, though the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense indicated there is currently no reason to believe the incident was deliberate.

Ukraine is simultaneously facing a shift in Russia's external military support. President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on 17 August that Russia is preparing to deploy additional North Korean soldiers and has received new ballistic missiles from Pyongyang. This alignment was mirrored by a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to Vladimir Putin, in which he expressed that he was proud of the relationship between the two nations, according to Pyongyang's official agency.

The human cost of these escalations has surged. A United Nations report indicated that July was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since May 2022, with at least 437 civilians killed. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) noted this represents a 70% increase compared to July 2025.

Infrastructure has become a primary strategic target. During a visit to Serbia, President Zelensky warned that Ukraine has quasiment aucune centrale thermique intacte (almost no intact thermal power plants) as winter approaches due to nearly daily Russian strikes. He told Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic that the missiles are specifically designed to make life for Ukrainians insupportable.

Operational pressure continues to mount inside Ukraine. In the east, the regional military administration of Donetsk ordered the evacuation of 525 children and their guardians from Kramatorsk. Governor Vadym Filachkine described the move as necessary due to deteriorating security and repeated Russian strikes on residential buildings. In the south, regional military chief Ivan Fedorov reported that massive strikes using missiles and guided aerial bombs in Zaporizhzhia damaged both residential and non-residential structures.

While Kallas seeks to expand the list of sanctioned entities, which currently targets nearly 3,000 people and entities across 21 packages, according to the European Commission, other Western powers are pursuing separate tracks. The United States Senate recently passed a sanctions package targeting the Russian hydrocarbon industry. Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the transfer of 1.4 billion euros in additional funds for Ukraine, utilizing the final tranche of exceptional profits from frozen Russian assets.

For the United States legislative process, the next step is a vote in the House of Representatives, which is not expected to take place until early September due to parliamentary vacations.

The military situation remains volatile as the Kremlin published a transcript of a phone call between Vladimir Putin and Colonel Abdulaziz Shikhabidov of the 76th Guards Airborne Division regarding the situation around Pokrovsk and Dobropillia. However, the Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reports that Shikhabidov may have died in May 2025, claiming the current commander is instead Denis Shizhov.